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This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm a Digimon Analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com

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Get ready for a next level discussion of those monster friends to the boys and girls.

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Crossroad Witch episode or chapter one, which is the Digimon Seekers spinoff, which it's interesting that Digimon Seekers was an official 25th anniversary project

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that I never finished reading. I read, I don't know, maybe a quarter of it, and then I just couldn't take it anymore, basically, is the issue.

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That ended, and I didn't think we'd see anything more from Digimon Seekers, but this fan apparently liked it enough that they wanted to do something with it,

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and they used that as a contest entry for this Digimon fan made manga project, and it was really interesting. I was really invested in it.

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Well, ironically, I don't quite remember the, it's UNLIN, I'm not sure. I think, or is it, yeah, funny thing is, I don't know the DigiCop lady's name,

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but I'm still invested in the story. I know Ryu Senji, Professor Ryu Senji was in there a lot in the book, in the web novel.

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He got talked about a lot. He had a lot of exposure, a lot of interactions with our main guy from that whose name I also don't remember,

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so don't feel too bad that I don't remember her name, even though she was the star of this manga, this prequel, I guess prequel manga.

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But my only one complaint about it is I was under the impression that Ryu Senji was like old, in his 70s or whatever.

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She looks really young here, and he still has black hair when they meet, you get to see him, and he still has black hair,

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which I would think you'd put a little salt and pepper in there to make him look older, put him closer to his age,

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and it also makes me wonder, well, does she age 15, 20 years in between her becoming this DigiPolice character in Digimon Seekers and this prequel manga?

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I don't really know. She looks like she's in her 20s, based on the way she dressed, maybe like 17, 18, but like mid-20s probably.

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It looks kind of like the 80s, reminding me of some Tokusatsu stuff, like specifically Yui Aso, I think, from Kabuneru Kiva,

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which that all took place in like 1986, but like I get a very Yui Aso vibe from her, and I don't know, really interesting.

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The art is fantastic. I forgot to double check who the artist is. I will double check before I'm done with this episode,

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before I get it out so I can talk about them and more fully compliment their work, but it looks beautiful, it's fabulous.

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It has a very modern look to it. It's not like the Digimon look good, and the Digimon look on model for Digimon, for sure,

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but the people have kind of a different look to them. I noticed that both Yuna, I think, and then her friend,

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they both have at some point they're like smiling, and they have like a sharp, you know, canine teeth, sharp eye teeth thing going on,

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which I feel is a little bit more of a modern thing. I feel like it's inside like some of the edgier manga and anime.

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Also, you know, the like the shark teeth or whatever are used for girls when they're being mischievous or cute or whatever,

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and it's not quite at that level, but I don't know, there's like a very young, fresh feel to the manga, to the character designs,

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and I liked that, and I thought that was all good, but it did kind of take me out of it for a moment, because I thought,

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well, it's kind of a strange choice, because this isn't what you would have seen in Digimon Adventure, for example.

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I know that the franchise is more than Digimon Adventure, but it also keeps going back to Digimon Adventure,

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and it keeps going back to those roots. We keep getting Agumon and V-mon and, you know, Aero V-German and all these...

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Aero V-German or is it Aero V-German? I don't remember. I think it's Aero V-German.

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Anyway, we keep getting all these callbacks that, you know, deeply root and set and recontextualize and touch back to the original,

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and it's just kind of funny that you would do that, but then do something so unlike the original.

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But again, it doesn't bother me. It's just kind of an interesting thing to comment on.

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But again, the art is fantastic, and the story was very engaging, far more engaging than Digimon Seekers.

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I don't think... Well, I heard that Ryu Senji ended up... Spoilers for Digimon Seekers.

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I heard that Ryu Senji kind of ended up being a villain, and I could very well see this being like his village...

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His village, his villain origin story, because he lost his daughter to the digital world.

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And it seems like he created the technology that enabled people to go into the DigiCore of a Digimon

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and upload and mind-link and all that stuff.

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And it seems like during one of their excursions, his daughter and this other lady were doing it.

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You know, you and Lynn, I think, is what it is, actually.

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Anyway, it seems like when they were Digi-walking, when they were doing whatever they call it,

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synced with their Digimon down in the digital world, they ended up her somehow getting lost,

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somehow getting trapped in the digital world.

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And Yuan is looking for her as a Black Agumon, which is what she appeared as.

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And I'm pretty sure we saw a Black Agumon appear very early in Digimon Seekers,

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but I don't remember now, because it's been a while.

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And I think that's interesting. So I really like the story on its own.

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It's very interesting. It's very compelling. You get to see this friendship between these girls.

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And then you see quickly, you know, they have this camaraderie and all these different...

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like shades to their relationship. Yuan kind of teases her, putting the cold can under her face.

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And she's, you know, the peppy Ryusenji girl saying like,

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oh, we can do anything and like we can make this work.

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And it's kind of like two very different personalities,

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but they have this deep friendship and they went through these things together and then she's lost.

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And then even like when Ryusenji calls her, he shows her a video of his daughter in a vegetative state in the hospital,

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just so that she's still alive, I guess, her body is still alive anyway.

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And they like... she almost looks hurt.

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And she says to him, like, is that all you called me here for?

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Almost like, yeah, I don't need to see that. I don't need you to hurt me again.

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I don't need to know that I can never have my friend back or whatever.

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And it felt very emotional, felt very deep. It felt very real. And I really appreciated it.

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And I think this story definitely stands on its own.

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And even if we don't get the full, you know, villain, villain reveal of Ryusenji, if that is in fact the case,

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if that is in fact what happens, like we don't really need that because as long as she either

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fails to get her friend back after trying really hard or like even if she fails,

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it'll still be a worthwhile story.

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And it still got the emotional investment out of me and made me interested and care about her and care about her friend.

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And also this really... I don't remember her like samurai dinosaur Digimon guy.

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I don't remember what his name is either, but he's like pretty cool.

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I want to say adorable, which he's a little bit adorable. He's a little bit cute.

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Like it's definitely a cute design, but like his personality is kind of interesting.

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And I don't know, like almost like an angry Goblin one who really loves Matt or his tamer or partner or whatever

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and wants to help take care of him, but the kid's too much of an idiot.

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And he's kind of causing himself problems and causing himself pain that the Digimon can only help with so much

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because if they're not willing to open up, they're not willing to open up.

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And you can't force somebody to be happy. You can't make somebody do what's good for them.

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Anyway, I got kind of that vibe and I really enjoyed his characterization

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and I enjoyed seeing their relationship develop and I really enjoyed that.

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So this was great. Basically everything except for the Houshi Mama outfit in Digimon Paradox.

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I'm loving everything coming out of this Digimon Manga project.

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And I'm really excited that they did that. I'm really excited they did the contest.

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And I'm excited for the fact that these came out in September originally, I believe.

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It's now October. The next issue is going to be out in November.

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So I wonder if they're going to do then January and then March after that.

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And then was that finishing in July? Maybe. That would be really cool.

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That would be neat. I hope they do something like that and that they can kind of keep this schedule up.

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Although, I mean, honestly, they could do things a little bit differently

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and they could instead have them released once a month or whatever

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and just kind of have, yeah, you're going to wait four months to, oh, I don't know.

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Maybe it's better than not doing it. I don't know what they should do.

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But I like what they're doing so far and I think they should keep whoever's running Team Digimon

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should keep experimenting with it and keep playing with it and figuring out what to do

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because I think they're doing something really good and they're kind of doing something really clever

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and it's very enjoyable. They're putting out some good product and making me care about Digimon

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and helping me to continue caring about Digimon and keeping me invested as a fan for a long, long time.

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And that's good because eventually, well, I bought the Digimon movies.

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I don't know how closely attached. I don't know how much that is like an American thing versus that is

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coming from Japan side of things. But they're doing that. They're keeping me invested with that.

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Liberator is really cool. That's also keeping Digimon in my mind and in my heart.

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And, you know, will I buy Digimon Card Pack? I don't know.

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But I bought Digimon Adventure for myself for my birthday. I'll probably buy Zero Two at some point.

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And then Tamers when that comes out and so on and so forth.

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So, I mean, you know, they're doing something to keep money coming from this customer

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that they established a long time ago. And that's pretty good. That's pretty good.

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And as long as they keep me entertained, as long as they keep telling me good stories that are meaningful

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and have something to say in them, even if it's just something to say about personal relationships,

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I'm going to keep paying attention and I'm going to keep, you know, eventually giving money for them.

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So that's good. That's the goal of a business. And they're doing it. So congratulations.

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And I love the fact that they're turning to these fans for content as well.

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And I hope that this isn't I hope this isn't like ghettoized as like, oh, these are just fan works.

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I hope these fans can be elevated to becoming professional mangaka working for Digimon, helping to shepherd it

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and helping to like inject something new and interesting and like deeply rooted, deeply seated in.

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Yeah, we've loved Digimon for decades and now we have something to say about it.

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We have something to say with it. And I think that's a really interesting idea.

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I think it's a really interesting idea. I think it's really a fun idea and hope it's something that they keep working with.

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I hope it's something they keep working with because I think it's just.

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It's working. That's the thing. It's working.

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And I think that's good. And I think you can keep working if they keep curating fan made stories.

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And I think you want to have somebody who's passionate about the idea.

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Remember, Digimon started off as a way to sell little electronic Tamagotchi toy things.

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And it's turned into what it's turned into.

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And I don't know who all was involved in Zero to the Beginning, but Zero to the Beginning kind of felt like a

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it either felt like it was heartless or soulless or the people who were making it didn't want to make it.

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Or maybe like they hate the fans, which doesn't make sense in any kind.

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Like none of those make sense for you to do.

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But we've seen other franchises do things that feel similar.

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And I don't really get that.

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So anyway, having fans who love Digimon tell their own Digimon, get the chance to tell their own Digimon stories and swing through the fences

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and tell something big that's going to land them a deal that makes their turn to Digimon Dreamers and Digimon winners, I think is a great idea.

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You know, the return to Digimon Dreamers and Digimon Champions is a good idea because it's netting them money.

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It's netting money for the franchise. And it's just it's overall good to win, win, win.

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The company wins. Those fans win. And we other fans win as well.

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And it's something I'd like to see continue, whether it's with these four creatives, plus Yasunobu

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or Yasunobu, right?

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Anyway, whether it's those people or like, I don't know, whether they keep going with them forever or they kind of switch out, you know, creator after creator after creator.

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Like that would kind of be a cheaper way to do it.

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And I think long term, if you could tell one of these creators, hey, we want to invest in you long term as somebody who helps make Digimon for us for the next, you know, three years, five years, two years, whatever.

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Like that could be really interesting. That could be really good.

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Digimon could almost turn into like what Western Comics has going for it, which is where you have short time creators who maybe don't try so hard because they're guaranteed it, you know, six books or whatever.

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And then it's going to shut down and be re-booted with a new number one.

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Or they can get a deal where they know that they have a contract to work for two, three, four, five years, whatever, with a certain character.

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And when creators know that they can make long term plans and really invest and really care.

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And maybe even something like that would be a good idea where you could have these different areas of Digimon where, well, you know, maybe they're going to feel these people out for a year, two years, whatever it is, or this, you know, six month period where they're staggering out the releases over.

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It's like an eight month period where they're staggering out these releases and maybe someone in the Digimon, you know, creative team in the back end of the office has that idea that, hey, we could like be,

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we could edit, we could be like editor in chief over these Digimon stories that are being told.

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And we can put these Digimon stories out there and just kind of keep it going as a cash machine.

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Like Digimon comic, it's launched its own Digimon comic, like Digimon has launched their own Digimon comic, you know, hosted on Digimon Web.

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It's almost like a mini-viz or mini Shonen Jump or whatever.

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And I noticed when I read through today, because this is the fifth manga I read now, that at the end of it, I was on my tablet because the other ones I read on the computer and on the phone.

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This time I read it, it was actually my laptop, a Chrome laptop in tablet mode.

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So I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. I'm going to check on my other devices.

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I'm having some computer issues, so afterwards, when everything's in good working order, I'm going to check it out.

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But now at the end of the comic, the end of the chapter, it says, did you like this?

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Like, it's funny, it's a machine translation, so it's a little silly.

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Maybe I'll take a screenshot and put it up too.

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It's like, did you like this? If you did, give us a yes.

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And it's a heart instead.

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So you click on the heart and it's a couple hundred people have liked the two or three things that I made.

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One of them I was reading today, Crossroads Witch, the others I went through to see, oh, it's on the other books as well.

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Or is it only on Seegers, which is a spinoff of an official product?

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And the other two, well, other one or two items added as well.

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So it'd be interesting to see what they have and if maybe people participate with that and they say, yeah, I like this one and you get a larger amount of people reading one and liking it.

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If they'll push the content towards, well, let's tell more of these secret stories, maybe Seegers as like a straight comic book as opposed to like a weird web novel is like a good way to do it.

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So what I'm saying is maybe they're setting themselves up for like slowly finding out what the fans want, what the fans need, what the fans value.

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And they're going to set up their own like little house, in-house studio of producing their own content, partially made by friends, fans and partially made by professionals, perhaps.

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Yasunobu being a professional here.

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And they're going to have, yeah, you're going to get one professionally made thing, Yasunobu, you know, we always like his work, we trust his work, whatever.

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And then you're going to get these other creatives who come in and want to have their shot and we're going to cycle them through.

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And if someone's good enough, we keep them and we keep them going and going and going.

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We give them money.

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And again, the fans are getting the kind of stuff they want and it's cultivating their own like direct market of manga distribution as opposed to have to go to Kodansha or anybody else and work with them to distribute their manga.

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And I think it's a fascinating idea.

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I think it's a fascinating model of almost like a direct sales type of deal for them to get this out to fans.

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Anyway, I think it's very interesting, very compelling.

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And that's a little bit more than me just reviewing Crossroads Witch, but that's what Crossroads Witch got me thinking about.

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And here we are.

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So I'm really excited for this.

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I'm really hopeful for the future of the Digimon franchise.

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And I really enjoyed the story.

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I'd love to hear what you think about Crossroads Witch, the other projects that I've talked about, as well as this idea that I have for Digimon kind of moving to in-house producing its own content and media.

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And it's also a great way to get to know its own content and managing and distributing its own content as well.

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I hope you enjoyed that.

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Please remember to like, share and subscribe.

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I invite you to comment, ask questions and share your thoughts with me.

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It's always more fun when you're part of the conversation.

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Until next time, shatter despair apart and show me your brave heart.

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Visit MJMunoz.com for more of my work and help me build up the Fortress fiction.